Draka Chapter 307: The Talk (Patreon)

Back in Chapter 300 I gave a rough estimation of how many words I'd published between my three ongoing series. Well, this chapter, as best as I can tell, contains the one millionth word of Draka specifically. One million words of our special little (not so little any more) dragon girl.

I feel pretty good about myself right now :) Thanks all!

//AB

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It was late in the morning on the following day. Mak and I were off on our own, not too far from the palace but deep enough among the trees to have some privacy, and my heart was breaking.

Mak was on her knees, face ashen, absolutely devastated. She was staring straight ahead, but her eyes seemed unfocused, like she was staring right through me to a future she didn’t want to imagine. “Please, mistress,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Please don’t.”

I’d told her how I’d given Herald back her freedom, and how I intended to do the same for her once it was safe. And now she was begging me, on her literal knees, not to free her. It was the lowest I’d seen her since that dark cell beneath Tarkarran’s house. Then she’d resigned herself to die, and had begged me to just make sure that Herald got out of that horrible place alive; now, though she hadn’t said it, I had the terrible feeling that she might actually rather die than lose my dominion over her. And my heart was breaking.

“Mak,” I begged her right back. “Dear sister, my fierce little dragon. Please look at me.”

She didn’t want to. I knew that she didn’t want to. She was so goddamn miserable in that moment, because of what I’d done to her and what I’d told her that I was going to do to fix that, that even facing me might bring her dangerously close to blaming me for something. And she couldn’t do that. But I’d asked her to look at me, and while that little please might have made a difference to someone like Kira or Ardek, to Mak there was no difference between a request and a command. So she forced herself to raise her head and face me.

She looked like she’d lost everything. It was all I could do not to turn my own face away, so I wouldn’t have to see what I was doing to her.

And then she whispered, “I’m happy. I’ve been so happy. Please don’t take that from me.” And my heart broke.

I wanted so much to take it back. I wanted to tell her that I’d changed my mind, and to promise that I’d never liberate her. That she’d be mine, free of fear and responsibility for as long as we both lived. But I couldn't. That was my own fear and pain and shame talking, and I deserved all of those. I had to be strong. I had to go through with it. I regretted telling her so soon; that had been a mistake, and I should have known better. Now she’d be carrying this misery with her until the day came, living with the knowledge that her happiness had an expiration date, and that was stupidly and cruelly thoughtless of me. Hell, in some ways I regretted my insistence on telling her at all. Would it have been kinder to just do it? I couldn’t convince myself that it would. No matter how she reacted to the news, and how she wanted to process it, this was going to be a major event in her life. I’d already made changes to her mind without warning or consent; I’d be damned if I did the same now.

But I owed her something. A thorough explanation, at the very least. Perhaps it wouldn’t erase the utter misery on her face, but I could at least hope that knowing and understanding what it meant to me would ease her dread of that day at some unknown point in the future.

“Mak, this is very important to me,” I said, as gently as I could. “I know that you’re happy to be mine. You’ve told me, repeatedly, how much lighter your burdens are now, and I believe you, I really do. But my power gets into your head, yeah? It changes the way you think. It makes you want to be mine. And so long as my power is in your head, neither of us can know how you’d feel about me without it. I need to give you the chance to make your mind up, to truly make your own mind up without my influence. My conscience demands it. So please understand that when I free you, it’s for my own sake as well as yours, yeah? If you decide, after a few weeks away from me, that you want to go back to the way you are now, I’ll be overjoyed to have you. But I can’t live with myself, knowing that I could give you the chance to make that choice for yourself, and yet I didn’t. Please, Mak. Please be strong for me, and let me do this.”

Was it manipulative? Yeah. It was manipulative as all hell. Telling her that she’d make me happy by stoically accepting my decision wasn’t quite the same as just commanding her to be happy, but it wasn’t far off. It was enough to make me just a little bit ashamed of myself as I saw the misery on her face melt away; not entirely, but mostly. In its place was a steely resolve, a knowledge that her mistress needed her to bear this burden, and a determination not to fail me.

Her voice shuddered with what could only interpret as relief. “Very well, mistress. If you need to test my loyalty and dedication to you, then so be it. You won’t find me wanting.”

That… wasn’t quite what I’d meant, but I fought down the urge to correct her. If that was how she needed to frame it to be able to function right now, then that was her prerogative.

I sent Mak back to the others after that, telling her that I’d like to be alone for a while. Our short conversation weighed on me for a long time after she’d gone. How could it not, after how much I’d hurt her?

Was it right? I asked my two headmates. I still don’t think it would’ve been right to just suddenly free her, or anyone, without telling them first, but I could have waited. I could have not even told her until we’re back in Karakan, hours before I actually do it. Why did I think it was a good idea to tell her now?

Instinct just grumbled sullenly. She’d been in a sook ever since I committed to telling Mak, and had even made an attempt to take control to stop me. Not for Mak’s sake; we’d all known that Mak wouldn’t take it well, and we all hated that, but that wasn’t why she resisted telling her. She didn’t want anything to do with releasing anyone else; hell, she was still mad about me preventing Herald from asking me to take her back. To Instinct, telling Mak was just the first step in losing her, and if there was one thing Instinct couldn’t stomach, it was losing something that belonged to us.

Well, it turned out that we were a democracy! With Conscience backing me up we’d stopped Instinct from taking control with barely a hitch in my step, and Instinct had been lurking sullenly in the back of my mind ever since. But as quiet as Instinct was, Conscience had plenty to say.

Why tell her now? To keep yourself honest, maybe, she suggested. Listen, for what it’s worth, I think you did good, and I would’ve told you not to if I thought it was a terrible idea. But I’m not perfect. No matter how confident I may sound sometimes, I’m still the same dumbass—minus a few bits that went into making you—who decided to go caving alone and without letting anyone know where I’d gone. I’m going to try to keep you to my moral compass, but it’s as flawed as it ever was. All I have to help me guide you is some distance from anything you do, a lot of time to think, and a complete lack of accountability for what I say. So, here’s what I can tell you. Do you need to go through with this? Absolutely. Should you tell each of them before you do? Yeah, I’d say so. Would it have been better to spring it on Mak a few hours or a day or two before you do it? Should you wait to tell Kira, Ardek, and Barro, or is it better to give them time to get used to the idea? I don’t know. I really don’t.

But, hey! You may not need to worry about that. You didn’t specifically tell Mak not to tell anyone else, so for all we know she’s already let them know what’s going on, to take that burden off you.

Goddammit! I swore, getting to my feet. You couldn’t have pointed that out a little sooner?

I had already started moving when she replied, with no hurry, Easy! Easy, yeah? She may have done, or she may not. Honestly, her judgment when it comes to handling people is better than ours ever was. You don’t think she’s taken into consideration how she herself feels about being told now, when the actual event may be weeks or months in the future? I remember you telling her and Herald that you didn’t want servants, you wanted friends and advisors. And while it may have been too late for Mak to not be completely subservient to you, she still does everything she can to make you as happy as possible, yeah? She knows that you hate hurting her. She knows that you wouldn’t want Kira and Ardek or anyone else to know if that wasn’t what was best for them. I’d be surprised if she didn’t discuss it with Herald before saying anything. Trust her, alright?

I slowed, then stopped, then slowly lay down again. Alright. So… what? What do I do?

She sent the mental equivalent of a shrug. Reassure her, I suppose. Herald felt rejected when you told her, but with Mak, it’s more like she’s rebuilt her whole world with you as her foundation, and that foundation suddenly doesn't seem so stable. You remember what she said: with you, she's not afraid anymore. She's not being crushed by responsibility. She's been letting you carry all that for her. And now she expects it all to come crashing down on her again. I guess… if you want her to not feel quite as awful until you free her, you need to make her believe that she won't have the world on her shoulders again once you do.

And how do I do that? I asked, more than a little frustrated.

Mate, I’ll tell you if I think of something. I don't know.

And neither did I.

Mak had not, as it turned out, told anyone. She had, just as Conscience suspected, talked to Herald about it, and they’d decided it was probably best not to. Not yet. And the moment it was just me and Herald again, she had some choice words for me about telling Mak already. I should have waited, and it was unconscionably thoughtless of me that I hadn’t. That was the gist of it, and it wasn’t as though I could argue with her.

It hurt, being scolded by someone I loved. It wasn’t one of her gentle, playful scoldings from before, either; this one had teeth. But it was also refreshing in a way. It had been almost a year since anyone who wasn’t a voice in my own head told me something like, “I would have thought that someone several years older than myself might have had the sense to wait,” and “when you have made yourself the center of someone’s world you need to actually gods-damned think things through before you act,” and, “at least one of my sisters still has the good sense to talk to someone when she is unsure!”

The fact that Herald was subtly scared when she said it, but said it anyway, only made me love her all the more. Again, it hurt a little that I frightened her now, but her speaking truth to me despite that fear, for the sake of someone we both cared for deeply… how could I not respect that? How could it fail to make me adore her more, no matter what else I felt?

I promised her, swore up and down, that I would try to do better in the future. And then she somehow made me admire her even more.

“What about me?” she asked once she’d cooled off a bit. She was sitting with her back to a tree stripping the bark from a twig, and had taken on a thoughtful look. “It is easy enough to see your failings. I think I always could, really, I just rationalized them. But what about me? I have Sarina and Marvan here, and Yakamo and Soandel back in the city. I have enthralled four people. I may have done it because they were threats to you, but that does not absolve me. I cannot say that I would have done differently if I had been fully free at the time. A threat to you is a threat to our family, our House, after all, and I really do not feel any different now than I did four days ago except in how I am able to think of you. So… how have I been treating them? Have I been as blindly thoughtless as I now know that you can be, out of no malice at all but because I simply did not consider the consequences of what I said or did?”

From the pained, slightly lost way that she looked at me I sensed that she truly wanted an answer, so I thought about it for a while. She didn’t hurry me. “I think,” I finally said, “that when it comes to Sarina and Marvan, you’re fine. Sure, you’ve let them do a lot of things for you, but you’re never anything but kind and even friendly to them. I can’t remember seeing you ever mistreat them. And I really would have either enthralled them myself or killed them if you hadn’t.”

“You would not have killed them,” she answered, her voice low but certain.

“Enthralled them, then. And I can’t say if me doing it would have been better or worse than you, but you’re certainly around more than I am, and you know better than I do what a difference that makes. But that brings us to the two councillors.”

Herald visibly winced. “Yeah,” she said heavily.

“Soandel was a traitor,” I stated. It was the simple truth. “He tried to sell Karakan to Tekeretek for the sake of his own power, and he tried to have Onur murdered. I don’t give half a damn about how he feels, though I’m sure you do. If it helps, I think he’s more independent minded than most, and satisfied to know that he’s steering things in the direction you want. But Yakamo… Yakamo worries herself sick over you. She needs to know that you’re all right, and that she’s useful to you. And she’s not getting that, but that’s my fault.”

“I could have asked you to take me there,” she said, her voice small and full of self-recrimination. “This is what I was talking about. I did not even consider her or Soandel’s feelings. It has been weeks now since I saw them. I know how painful it was to be separated from you, and I know how relieved Yakamo was to see me last time, but I just did not consider her when I let you take me back here. I wanted to go back to the city. I really did. But that was for my own sake, because I wanted to see them, not because of any concern for how they may be feeling, and I was more concerned about seeing Mak and everyone here. I have been more worried about Master Rassarian not being willing to continue my tutoring than I have been about them worrying over me!”

“I’ll take you back if you want me to,” I told her. Carefully, because it might take some arranging. “I don’t think it would be safe to just go, so we’d need an escort, and I’m not sure that taking you back would be reason enough for Mother to agree. I’d need some other good reason to go. But if you say the word, I’ll make it happen.”

“I know you would.” For a short moment a sad smile graced her lips. Then it fell, and she said, “Draka, I think that I may not be a very good person.”

“Don’t say that,” replied. “You’re wonderful.”

“You’re biased,” she countered. “If I were a good person, I would be hoping that I could find some way of freeing my thralls. If I were a good person I would be promising myself that I will never do it again. But I do not think I can do either of those things. If anything, I am relieved that I cannot dreamwalk the way you do, because that way I have an excuse. Really, I have no standing to criticize you. At least you are committed to giving some of us a chance at independence, whether…”

She fell silent for a while, seeming to think about her words, then snorted softly. “I was going to say, ‘whether we want it or not,’ but that feels overly harsh. I remember clearly what I said to you before you freed me, and I do not imagine Mak is a particularly good judge of what is best for her at the moment. Nor, do I assume, would Ardek or Kira be.”

“What about Barlo?”

“Honestly, I do not think we would see any difference in him. We have been paying him well enough, and he speaks to Mak and Val ten times more than he does to you. I imagine all we would get out of him would be a polite, ‘I really would rather not, but if you think it’s best…’”

“I’m not so sure. This is the guy who risked being torn apart by some monster in the dark because he just couldn’t stay away.”

“Yeah, well. He got his curiosity satisfied, did he not?”

“Gods and Mercies, you were creepy that day,” I said, chuckling softly at the memory. “The way you lured him in? He had no idea, but from my perspective, knowing what you were doing, it was like a horror story!”

She actually matched my laugh at that. “That was so much fun! I mean, I felt bad about it, and I still do, but it really was hilarious in a mean kind of way. The way he tried to warn us off. And… I do not know if I was fully under your thrall yet by then, but I really do not think I would have done anything differently. I doubt we could have convinced him to walk away. I am just glad things ended the way they did. He is a good man.”

“He is, isn’t he?” I agreed. The man wasn’t a saint; he had his vices. He liked his drink, and he wasn’t above paying for a night with a lady. But he cared. When he was guarding Ramban and Tavia, long before there was any chance of me having influenced him, he’d gone beyond what might be expected of a hired guard to keep them safe. And just days ago, after Behold Her’s attack on Karakan, he’d run all across the city checking on his family, and when he was done, despite how late it was, he’d made at least an attempt to look for Ardek’s kids.

Yeah, Barro was a good egg. The next time I was at my hoard, I decided, I’d see if I couldn’t speak to him and Jekrie, and then free them. Other than my selfish desire not to, there was no reason to put it off.

Now I just needed to make myself not put off going to my hoard, and I’d be well on my way to becoming a better person.